


A Relief From Their Gifts

by LayALioness



Category: Minority Report (2002)
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They called her 'all-seeing,' which isn’t strictly true. She sees very much, much more than most do. But she does not see everything. </p><p>Sometimes she wishes she could. Sometimes she wishes she didn’t see at all.</p><p>Or, Agatha and the twins move to their cottage by the sea, but that is not the end of their story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Relief From Their Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> This is set some years after the end of the movie Minority Report, which if you haven't seen it, you absolutely should, because it's a masterpiece. It'll also be very hard for you to understand this, without seeing that film.
> 
> Title from the last lines of the movie.

Agatha never tells the twins what happened when John kidnapped her. They barely remember it, of course; all their memories from the Temple are hazy, and unreliable. Like the first moments after waking up, when you can’t be sure you’re not still dreaming.

She never tells them about her mother, although of course they already know. They don’t ask about her. They know what it means to lose.

They do ask about John, and often. The cottage is lovely, and it is a good life for them, but they are still alone, in the end. They have each other, but that only goes so far. There are only so many conversations they can have, once they’ve been inside each other’s heads for so long.

John is someone they don’t know, like a fairytale, and Agatha got to speak with him, and see the outside world. Outside of the Temple, outside of their bookshelves in the cottage, and the seashore just outside. She got to see people, speak with people. They want to know what that’s like.

Agatha never tells them that it felt like she was drowning. Like a mermaid, like Wally called them, beached on the land and unable to leave. She never tells them that strangers kneeled to her, on hands and feet, and apologized for things they did as children, things they hadn’t thought about in years. Strangers reached for her, trying to graze her skin just once.

They called her _all-seeing_ , which isn’t strictly true. She sees very much, much more than most do. But she does not see everything. Sometimes she wishes she could. Sometimes she wishes she didn’t see at all.

 _Pre-cog_ has always fit her better, because that’s exactly what she and the twins were; cogs. Pieces of a puzzle, parts in a machine, fitted and wired together to keep the world spinning. They were the means, and Burgess was the end, or at least _an_ end.

Death is only the end if the story is about you, and Agatha knows better. She’s seen hundreds of deaths. It never stops much.

That’s what Wally, and John, and Burgess, and all the others never understood—the pre-cogs never just _see_ the deaths. They _live_ them, and then again, and again, depending on how far the ripples spread. How many times it echoes. They speak the last words, or the words that would have been spoken if it all hadn’t happened so quickly, and ended so abrupt. They gasp for breath underwater, or under the pillow, or between the hands around their necks. They feel the burn of the bullet, or the sting of the knife, or the scissors, or the letter opener. People never prove so resourceful as when they commit murder.

Death is hard to measure against time, because like time, it never really starts or stops. It never listens to reason. Sometimes Agatha lives a death that has already happened, nearly forty years before, and sometimes she lives one that hasn’t happened yet. Sometimes she lives one that’s happening in that moment, thousands of miles away. She hates those ones the most, because later she’ll see their names in the paper that John has delivered to the cottage. She’ll see their names, and she’ll remember their children’s birthdays, and she’ll see those children grow up and marry or maybe not ever marry, and maybe have children of their own. Maybe they’ll have cats, like Agatha, a pair of them, because the twins each wanted one of their own.

She’ll see those children grow old without their parents, and she’ll ache for them, because that pain isn’t an echo or cognition. That pain is her own, the pain of a girl who lived her own mother’s death from a hundred miles away in a tank of cold water. A girl-turned-mermaid, who couldn’t do anything except scream when they caught the wrong man.

Agatha blinks the vision away and pulls on a sweater. The sun is barely risen, and the air is still cold. She can smell the salt from the ocean when she opens the door, to collect the paper from the front step. She’s not sure who John hires to put it there. She wonders if they know who lives behind these walls.

There’s a letter with the paper, in John’s blocky script, the handwriting of a policeman who never took the time to perfect his cursive. He probably never even learned.

Sean would have learned, she knows. She’s seen it. Sean would have taken a calligraphy course, to impress the red haired girl in the front. He would have written her poetry in it. And then again, years later, whenever he was late for dinner or spent too much time at work. He would leave her notes on the mirror, to let her know he still cared.

Actually, Agatha might hate the lives-that-might-have-been, the most. The ones cut too short, stretching on in her periphery. Sean would have had a daughter. She would have cured brain aneurisms, twenty-two years before it will be cured, now.

Agatha shuts the door and pours water in the tea kettle. She sits as she waits for it to boil, and flicks the envelope open with her nail. It is short and precise, as John’s letters always are. He’s never been one for pleasantries, she knows. She respects this about him.

_Lara says hello, and so does Sadie. She turned four last weekend. She’s drawn you a cat, down at the bottom. Things are going well at work. Everyone keeps saying I should write a book, but I think we both know that won’t happen. It wouldn’t be any good. You could probably write a whole encyclopedia. Hope you and the twins are well. It is still now. John._

She doesn't doubt him anymore, that she's living in the present. Living in the world; out of that tank, with her own thoughts and emotions rather than moderated serotonin and adenosine and melatonin. That when she wakes up in clean sheets, with sunlight streaming through the window, and fresh air in her lungs, it's not all a dream fed to her through wires.

And if it is a dream, at least it's a nice one. She thinks she'll stay a while.

There is a drawing of a cat in the bottom, in thick purple crayon. It’s wearing a party hat, and has rather impressive whiskers. It’s also incredibly fat.

Agatha traces her finger against it, to feel the ridges of the wax. She leaves it on the table for the twins to fawn over when they wake, and flips the newspaper open to the crossword.

She _could_ write an encyclopedia, were she so inclined. Whether on pre-cognition, or pre-crime, or her own history. Or something entirely different, and fictional. The story of three girls in a cottage by the ocean, with their books and tea and cats, living out their perfectly ordinary lives. Until their deaths, or the ending.

Whichever comes first.

The kettle starts to shriek, as the calico cat rubs up against her ankles. Agatha fetches three mugs and the tea from the cupboard. She doesn’t read the leaves.


End file.
